I told Ohio lawmakers that a new law would put gas plants in residential areas. Now it’s happening.

Last March during the hearings on Ohio House Bill 15, I was the only representative of an environmental organization in Ohio to testify against it.

The reason? Among the good things this legislation did was also something very bad: It gave the Ohio Power Siting Board just 45 days – six weeks – to consider a major utility facility – defined as 50 MW or more – to serve a large energy user – often a data center – on property owned by the applicant. Usually this process takes one to three years.

Data centers use prodigious amounts of energy – often as much as an entire city. If they are to be directly served by an energy generation facility, it needs to be well over 50 MW.

It was clear from the language of H.B. 15 that any such major utility facility would be run by gas.

Wind turbines have too large of a setback requirement to go on most land next to a large energy user, and the footprint of utility scale solar projects is too large.

According to Data Center Map, there are now 215 data centers in Ohio, of which 133 are in Central Ohio. Many are in residential areas.

I know because there’s an Amazon data center campus across the street from my house, and 32 data centers within 10 miles.

A gas-powered fuel cell

For a few weeks after H.B. 15 went into effect, I breathed easier thinking it would be a while before a gas plant could be built at any of the data centers near me.

Gas turbines are in short supply, resulting in lead times of four to seven years to build a gas plant.

What I didn’t know about was the existence of a gas-powered fuel cell.

Rather than combustion, gas fuel cells use methane gas to create electricity through a chemical reaction inside the cell. It results in a lot less particulate pollution but still emits large amounts of carbon dioxide.

In July I learned that AEP plans to install a 73 MW fuel cell at the Amazon data center on Scioto Darby Creek Road in Hilliard.

It is to be the largest fuel cell in North America, second only to an 80 MW fuel cell in Korea. It will emit up to 1.45 million pounds of carbon dioxide every day – the equivalent of 66,000 gasoline vehicles.

This data center is directly next door to the large Darby Glen subdivision as well as Darby Glen Park and Beacon Elementary School.

Within a mile lies Columbus Humane, Highpoint-Glen subdivision, and Mill Run Shopping Center.

Just 1.5 miles away is Quarry Trails Metro Park.

An expedited process

By the time I learned about the fuel cell project, the power siting board had already fast-tracked it.

There was no public notice, no public information session, and no public hearing. The city had been told, but the people had no idea, including those who live next door.

On Sept. 15, siting board staff issued a report recommending automatic approval of the fuel cell – meaning no formal vote by the Public Utilities Commission. Approval occurred September 23.

On Oct. 9, Amazon brought the fuel cell to the Hilliard Planning and Zoning Commission, calling it a “minor change” to the site layout. Minutes show the commission had a lengthy debate, then postponed the decision to their November meeting.

On Oct. 20, AEP delivered a letter to the city withdrawing the application to Planning and Zoning on the grounds that state approval was all they needed, and that the state process had been expedited thanks to Ohio House Bill 15.

This turn of events came as a shock to the city and its residents.

Immediately a citizens group launched a petition that received over 1,000 signatures, and dozens of concerned citizens showed up at the City Council meeting on Oct. 27.

At that meeting, council voted to appeal the air permit that had already been granted by Ohio EPA.

Such permits consider particulate pollution but do not look at carbon dioxide or any other greenhouse gas, despite the obvious threat of these gases to a stable climate.

Two citizens who live near the data center also appealed the air permit. The preliminary hearing for all three plaintiffs is today, Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 10 a.m.

No precedent

The fight against the fuel cell is an uphill battle for the city of Hilliard and its residents. But it shouldn’t be that way.

Imagine a major polluting facility moving in next door to you – and not only did you have no say in the matter, you didn’t even find out until it was too late.

Even worse, no one knows what will happen when a fuel cell this large goes directly next to thousands of homes, businesses, parks, and nonprofits.

There’s no precedent for this anywhere in North America.

• Will 1.45 million pounds of CO2 emitted daily at ground level simply dissipate?
• Or will the CO2 – the most common greenhouse gas in the world – warm the air in the vicinity to unprecedented levels?
• What are the health effects of chronic exposure to heightened levels of CO2?
• And what are the climate effects of putting this much CO2 into the atmosphere during a climate crisis?

People who live in the area feel like this fuel cell is an experiment with them and their children as unwilling test subjects.

At the very least, baseline CO2 measurements must be established and monitored, and a dispersion / inversion study needs to be done.

All I can say to the Ohio politicians who pushed through H.B. 15 is, I told you this would happen, and now it is happening.

Now you owe it to the people of Hilliard to listen to them and address their concerns.

That’s who has to deal with the consequences of your actions.

This commentary was originally printed in the Ohio Capital Journal on December 10, 2025.

Photo: Data center next to new construction housing in Hilliard, Ohio.